So, I stumbled upon this article in The Washington Post written by . Ruhlman starts off by reminiscing about a time when he asked a shopper at the supermarket why they were buying fat-free half-and-half. Turns out, it was because it’s fat-free. The customer then read what replaces the fat — corn syrup — and continued to buy the carton without question. Why did she choose fat-free? Because she has been led to believe that it’s “healthy.”
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Healthy is defined by the Merriam-Webster Dictionary as “having good health, not sick or injured, conducive to health.” There are so many fad diets and health claims constantly coming out of the wood work — in the 1990’s it was the no-carb Atkins diet, then there was the “Egg Scare” claiming yolks contain too much cholesterol, now we’ve moved into the mishmosh of “Healthy” diets or eating trends plaguing us today including — Paleo, Gluten free (for those without an intolerance), Clean eating, Raw, Vegan, and Vegetarian diets. All of these food trends or diets claim to be “healthy.” It’s the same story with all those tea-toxes and juice cleanses you keep seeing on the gram.
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says, “I submit to you that our beloved kale salads are not ‘healthy.’ And we are confusing ourselves by believing that they are. They are not healthy; they are nutritious.” He may be onto something here. Yes, kale has awesome nutritious elements to it — Vitamin A, C, and K — but eating a kale salad seven days a week is not “healthy” or “conducive to health.”
Turn it back to a couple of months ago when the Food and Drug Administration asked snack bar giant Kind (Almond & Coconut FTW) to change it’s advertising. This is because the almonds contained too much fat in order for their products to be labeled as “healthy.”
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The words we use when it comes to food makes a difference. Cheese-product is different from cheese, whole wheat is different from whole grain, and so on. But how does the average Joe make an educated decision when it comes to grocery shopping?
First we need to figure out what we know. We know we will be healthy if we eat nutritious foods. If we don’t understand the words being used we will never know what qualifies. We need to eat a lot of different things in order to get the vitamins and nutrients our bodies crave. Carbs have good stuff in them, Kale has good stuff in it and this protein-packed vegan bowl has good stuff in it (including kale and carbs). You might not be able to label everything you eat as “healthy” but you can feel good about eating them. When it comes to eating “healthy” I leave you with this quote from the article, “fat isn’t bad — stupid is bad.” Someone make that into a t-shirt.